Red miso is the secret weapon for grilled skirt steak

ONE of our secret ingredients to build flavor fast is miso. As an umami base, it helps balance and unify sweet and sour notes in everything from chicken to pasta, even cookies.

It goes particularly well in a sweet-savory marinade for grilled skirt steak, amplifying the meat’s beefiness and balancing the sugars in Asian chili-garlic sauce.

In this recipe from our book “Milk Street Tuesday Nights,” which limits recipes to 45 minutes or less, we preferred red miso for its rich flavor, which is deeper than the more common white miso (though white also would be delicious). For a double dose of flavor, we use it in the sauce and the marinade, which also includes soy sauce, sesame oil and a bit of white sugar.

Once the meat is cooking, the sugars in the marinade caramelize to create flavorful browning, and the steak finishes in only a few minutes on